During apple harvest time, my mom would make a spectacular apple cake.

It had lemons, and apples and cinnamon and butter.

It remains to this day my favorite cake.

And it got me to thinking — with only two weeks left in our campaign — about an idea that would help us raise funds to push our substantive agenda onto the front burner of American politics.

Here it is:

If you donate to Nader/Gonzalez by midnight tonight an amount that has the number two in it (two being the number of lemons in my mom’s apple cake recipe — the number of apples will remain a secret, for now), we’ll e-mail to you Rose Nader’s apple cake recipe tomorrow.

If it has a two in it, we’ll e-mail you the apple cake recipe tomorrow.

And it’s a great recipe that serves 20.

So, you can share it with your friends and family.

(Your donation will help us reach our current fundraising goal of $200,000 by the October 24 deadline. It will help us fund our get-out-the-vote drive over the final stretch of this campaign — which translates into putting the substantive Nader/Gonzalez shift the power agenda front and center in this crucial election year.)

Thank you for your ongoing activism and support.

Together, we are making a serious difference — and keeping our sense of humor.

Onward to November.

Ralph Nader

PS: Given my love for apples, I was a little disheartened to read today that the state of Washington — the apple state — has misspelled my name on the official election ballots. They spelled it Nadar instead of Nader — and refused to reprint it accurately.

PPS: Remember, if you give $100 or more now, we will ship you our special Wall Street rally DVD, featuring my speech on Wall Street last week. In addition, we’ll send you two great books — Gangster Capitalism by Michael Woodiwiss, and The Cheating of America by Charles Lewis, Bill Allison and the Center for Public Integrity. (This offer ends October 24, 2008 at 11:59 p.m.)